x1 PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 379 
evidence we have there. To enable us to say that 
- we know anything about the experimental origin- 
ation of organisation and life, the investigator 
- ought to be able to take inorganic matters, such 
as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and salines, in 
_ any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to 
build them up into protein matter, and then that 
protein matter ought to begin to live in an 
organic form. That, nobody has done as yet, and 
‘ I suspect it will be a long while before anybody 
does do it. But the thing is by no means so 
impossible as it looks ; for the researches of modern 
chemistry have shown us—I won’t say the road 
_ towards it, but, if I may so say, they have shown 
{ the finger-post pointing to the road that may lead 
~ to it. 
It is not many years ago—and you must recol- 
lect that Organic Chemistry is a young science, 
‘ 
4 
dj ie DY eRe 
at > 
_ not above a couple of generations old, you must 
not expect too much of it,—it is not many years 
ago since it was said to be perfectly impossible to 
fabricate any organic compound ; that is to say, 
“any non-mineral compound which is to be found 
in an organised being. It remained so for a very 
long period; but it is now a considerable number 
_of years since a distinguished foreign chemist con- 
trived to fabricate urea, a substance of a very 
_ complex character, which forms one of the waste 
_ products of animal structures, And of late years 
a number of other compounds, such as butyric 
